Brett Matthew and Zach James, Lead strategists for BetKarma’s NFL managed sportfolios

We had a strong start to the season with all sportfolio strategies returning positive results in Week 1. Core, our most important and flagship strategy, went 5-0 and returned 5%; Conservative went 2-1 and returned 1.1%; and Aggressive went 13-2 and returned 13.8%. We beat all our benchmarks, including the SuperContest Consensus Top 5 picks, and all relevant competitors, including Pregame, VSiN, ProMathletics, and Right Angle Sports. Nonetheless, we continue to be cautious heading into Week 2, recognizing there will be a lot of overreaction from Week 1, but also less than optimal information on which to make calculated decisions. We won’t have conviction in our model outputs until at least Weeks 4-5, when the data inputs will be richer and more meaningful to accurate predictions. This week, we are looking to spread value, but recognize that some of these picks may indeed be, what we call on Wall Street, “value traps” – bets that look attractive using traditional handicapping norms, but turn out to be sure-fire money burners. As such, we are taking less risk across most sportfolios heading into Week 2.

Core Strategy (risking 5.9% to return 5%):

1. Seahawks +4 risk 1.2% to return 1%
2. Vikings +3.5: risk 1.2% to return 1%
3. Raiders +7.5: risk 1.1% to return 1%
4. Bills -1: risk 1.1% to return 1%
5. Bears money line: risk 1.3% to return 1%

Conservative Strategy (risking 4.5% to return 3.4%):

1. Bears money line: risk 1.3% to return 1%
2. 7 point teaser, Seahawks +10.5/Texans -1.5: risk 1.4% to return 1%
3. 7 point teaser, Seahawks +10.5, Raiders/Chiefs over 46: risk 1.3% to return 1%
4. Cowboys/Texans money line: risk 0.55% to return 0.4%

Aggressive Strategy (risking 14.1% to return 11.1%)*:

1. Buccaneers +7: risk 1.1% to return 1%
2. Seahawks +4: risk 1.2% to return 1%
3. Vikings +3.5: risk 1.2% to return 1%
4. Bears money line: risk 1.3% to return 1%
5. Cardinals +14: risk 1.2% to return 1%
6. Raiders +7.5: risk 1.2% to return 1%
7. Cowboys/Texans money line parlay: 1.1% to return 0.8%
8. 7 point teaser, Seahawks +10.5, Raiders/Chiefs over 46.5: risk 1.3% to return 1%
9. 8.5 point teaser, Saints +10, Texans PK, Vikings +11: risk 1.15% to return 1%
10. 6.5 point teaser, Vikings +9, Cowboys +1, Raiders/Chiefs over 47: risk 1% to return 1.4%
11. Titans -3: risk 0.55% to return 0.5%
12. Texans money line: risk 2% to return 0.5%

Multi-Sport Total Return Fund Strategy

Please follow Brett Matthew and Zach James on Twitter at @nonrandomalpha and @zjalpha and the Discord chat for real-time trades throughout the week (this is a separate strategy that makes trades across all sports both college and pro and will be active through to the NBA Finals). This strategy was up 12.3% through last week in college and pro football, and was up another 5.5% this Saturday, Week 3 of college football, bringing the season-to-date return to 17.8%!

Performance Reporting

As promised, we will provide detailed post-hoc total and relative performance commentary every Wednesday – so please stay tuned. Check out last NFL Week 1’s performance report here.

Of course, if you’d like to learn more about the overall approach to the NFL model sportfolio strategies, check out our introductory note here.